Just read the bloody uniform policy!!!

Personally, I think school Uniform is pointless and the time and effort the school puts in to policing it would be better spent on other issues. My DC school frequently fails to communicate important information to parents until the last minute but sends several letters to everyone about uniform every term (including printed copies of letters, e-mails and text messages to parents of every pupil).

However- everyone knows that the schools have a uniform and that there will be consequences if it is not adhered to. Yet every September there are newspaper reports with parents complaining that they are having to buy new shoes/trousers/whatever because what they originally bought was (always very clearly) not in line with uniform. It is always parents who have bought a more expensive branded item (so not a case of having to buy what they can afford).

In my personal experience when there have been sensible reasons for not being able to wear the proper uniform (eg. problems getting items to fit/needing shoes that work with orthotics/shoes breaking and not being able to get a compliant replacement immediately) the school has been very reasonable.

I would entirely support parents campaigning to do away with uniform but sending your DC to school in something that is blatantly wrong with no good reason and then complaining that they are not allowed to wear it just makes them look like arseholes.

I think isolation for a pair of bloody shoes is absolutely ridiculous. A note sent home with the child should surely suffice.

This.

The best uniform policy is one where the uniform has multiple options built in, so that the autistic girl who will scratch until she bleeds if you make her wear a certain jumper can wear a different one instead without needing special permission to do so and without standing out because other, neurotypical, children are also wearing a variety of jumpers. And the Black child with an afro (which I fully support because no child should have to chemically-straighten their hair just to go to school) can wear a cardigan instead of trying to pull a jumper over their hair without needing special permission to basically exist comfortably whilst Black. And the girl with surgery scars or a prosthetic leg can wear trousers without being the special exceptional one girl in trousers.

My point is that there is no hoop jumping these days beyond advocating for your child. The Equality Act 2010 levelled the playing field by making employers, schools, etc., responsible for providing reasonable adjustment for disabled people so that their disability doesn’t disadvantage them. If, as people are posting here, some schools are not complying then I would have thought it’s important for parents to advocate for their children so that they are not discriminated against.

For example, if your child cannot wear an element of the uniform, don’t just send them to school on the first day of term dressed outside uniform rules or they will be sent home. Contact the school beforehand to explain that your child has a disability that qualifies under the Act and ask for reasonable adjustment in the form of whatever element of the uniform is unsuitable. You don’t need a formal diagnosis to be eligible under the Act, so you don’t need medical evidence, you just need to have a significant difficulty which qualifies.

If a school has a uniform policy then parents have an obligation to follow it - if the child has a disability which makes elements of that uniform unsuitable the school need to know. If you don’t tell them they can’t help. I’m not against making school uniform more inclusive to disabled people, but I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon, so you have to work with what you have.

My kids have gone to both uniform and non-uniform schools, expensive logoed uniform, and supermarket uniform, and there's been no issue with figuring out who the poorer kids are in any case.

Uniform doesn't equalize - it just causes trouble for the parents, who, if it's a chaotic household don't care anyway so it causes trouble for the kids.

If people are already struggling, having to go out and spend a couple of hundred on clothes just for school isn't going to equalise anything.

Two days in isolation for something that he couldn't help.

JFC what is wrong with this country?

Agree.

In my DCs' US high school, students contravening the 'offensive logo' rule on clothing were given a school-issued PE T-shirt to wear over the offending item, a transaction that took all of five minutes over the student's lunchtime. Then parents were notified and the incident recorded.

This is because excluding a students from class is a matter taken extremely seriously, and doing so for reasons that are completely frivolous would be a gross contravention of the student's right to education.

@Goldbar

100%. Forcing kids to wear jumpers in 30 degree weather seems like a major health and safety issue.

I wore miss sexy trousers and michal kors shoes in year 10 as I was bullied in year 7-9 after a video of me having sec went around. Wearing the branded clothes instantly stopped my bullying.

I agree with rules as I remember screaming and fighting with my parents to buy them and my mum didn’t have the money and also hated it. Stupid how having a tick on your shoes makes your better then wearing the same shoe without and schools should crack down as people just don’t have the money. These parents are crazy but also if it was the same situation as me and it’s stoped the kids bullying I get why the the child and parents were upset.

just wish everyone would follow t

It's hard to take schools seriously on H&S though when many have insisted that students wear jumpers/blazers all though recent heat waves.

^ and they have to ask permission to take them off. A high school near me removed a teens green coat as it wasn't uniform blue and let him cycle home without in winter.

I can't believe teachers are wasting education time on this shit.

It's a power flex, other countries don't make kids dress like little bank managers.

Maybe but I don’t know there’s even a Clark’s in my city anymore

It's hard to take schools seriously on H&S though when many have insisted that students wear jumpers/blazers all though recent heat waves.

Crazy waste of time for schools, and putting kids in solidarity for any reason should be illegal.

Schools have to think about safety hence the shoe rules, staircases are hazardous places with loads of kids on them. The NIKE mother could have saved herself over £50 by going to Clarks - no sympathy, sorry.

‘Yep. Plain black shoes tend to be priced highly, exactly because retailers know that parents have to buy them for school.’

Thats BS. It’s the opposite, they sell them cheap to get you to buy uniform from their supermarket/ shop.

The fact is that the Equality Act is simply not adhered to by many schools, in many ways, that is where you are being naive. You are quoting the law as if I (disabled, with a disabled child) am also unaware. Schools just need to try harder. It shouldn't be on us to need to advocate in that way.

Schools could make school uniform more inclusive very simply by offering a range of simple options in plain colours (eg any plain shirt, polo shirt, t shirt) and not being so damn fussy about it.

Re the small logo on Kickers - easy to remove with nail scissors!

Well quite! Why do they do them?

A lot of schools don't have lockers.

Two days in isolation for something that he couldn't help.

JFC what is wrong with this country?

So the kids were sent home for being fat? That’s not very nice!

Yep. Plain black shoes tend to be priced highly, exactly because retailers know that parents have to buy them for school.

@midgemadgemodge - the vast majority of students in the US and Canada do not wear school uniform at any point in their education. There is usually a dress code, which can vary from 'no speedos or bikinis in school' to 'students must be covered from ankle to neck'. My own local HS mandates closed toe shoes for lab sciences and forbids offensive slogans on clothing (defined as racist, misogynist, hate speech, or goady, and the opinion that matters on definition of those qualities is that of the dean of discipline). Students in continental Europe also tend to have a dress code and not a uniform.

Last time I looked, the UK was geographically, economically, and culturally firmly a part of what can loosely be called 'the West', which includes the vast majority of those countries whose students do not wear school uniform.

1. It is making already-overloaded parents hoop-jump.
2. It makes the disabled kids stand out as disabled because they are the only ones not in the strict uniform, increasing bullying.
3. Not every child who should have a SEND statement of needs / EHCP / whatever it's called now has one. At least with a flexible uniform policy, the undiagnosed child can try to wangle a uniform that doesn't make her want to claw her own skin off.

Worked example of (3) from my own experience:
My school at first had a fairly relaxed uniform policy, offering several styles of skirt and with blazers optional. During the summer uniform shop, I was able to pick a skirt that was soft, lined, and low-waisted with a length that finished a little above the knee. I could pick a jumper that didn't itch through my shirt and I didn't wear the blazer.
Then a new head started. The uniform rules changed overnight to a specific Trutex skirt in a specific length that finished exactly on the knee, a specific jumper, and a forced blazer.

I have sensory processing problems as part of my autism. When I walked, the Trutex skirt hit the back of my knee where the skin is really sensitive and felt like sandpaper. The higher waist cut into me when I sat down and made me feel like I couldn't breathe properly. The jumper itched through my shirt and the blazer felt like I was wearing platemail, it bunched up inside my elbow when I bent my arms and the collar was like sandpaper on my neck.

But I didn't have a SEND diagnosis until I attempted suicide, so my protests were met with "well you'll just have to put up with it". And when I did attempt suicide, I was diagnosed with depression, which wasn't even what was wrong...

I agree with this. Uniforms seem to be a way of schools competing with each other. It's so ridiculous. No logos on shoes allowed and yet we have to get 4 bits of PE kit all with the embroidered school logo at significant cost. Brilliant.